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Eastern Michigan University

Theses/Dissertations

2019

Articles 1 - 12 of 12

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

An Investigation Of The Nature Of Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor Type-I (Pai-I) To Improve Upon Known Small Molecule Inhibitors, Justin A. Powers Jan 2019

An Investigation Of The Nature Of Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor Type-I (Pai-I) To Improve Upon Known Small Molecule Inhibitors, Justin A. Powers

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

Plasminogen activator inhibitor type-I (PAI-I ) is a serpin superfamily member protein that acts as the major inhibitor of tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) and urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA). At physiological levels, PAI-I plays an active role in regulating fibrinolysis, the process of normal blood clot degradation. Pathological levels of PAI-I have been linked to multiple health ailments: fibrosis, heart disease, cancer, and obesity. In recent years, PAI-1 has been the subject of targeted drug design. In this study, we identified a class of polyphenol compounds as the most capable of maintaining its inhibitory efficiency against vitronectin bound PAI-I in buffer …

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Uv-Curable Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Polyurethane Coating, Shiyin Yu Jan 2019

Uv-Curable Organic-Inorganic Hybrid Polyurethane Coating, Shiyin Yu

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis explored a series of organic-inorganic hybrid polyurethane oligomers with varying molecular weights and functional groups (acrylate and/or silane) that were cured with a single ultraviolet (UV) trigger but two photo-initiators. Upon UV irradiation, the free-radical initiator initiated a free-radical reaction for acrylate cross-linking, and the photo-latent base initiated a sol-gel reaction for condensation of the silanes. This study explored the cure extent of both reactions by FTIR for acrylates and silanes and a weight-loss method for silanes as a function of functional group concentration and time. The general film properties were also studied. The results showed that the …

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Understanding The Role Of Atg7 And Atg14 In Autophagy, Ronith Chakraborty Jan 2019

Understanding The Role Of Atg7 And Atg14 In Autophagy, Ronith Chakraborty

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

Autophagy is the process by which cytosolic components are trafficked to and degraded by the vacuole or lysosome. It plays a critical role in cellular health, aging, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases. Atg7 and Atgl4 are enzymes required for the autophagic process in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In this study, we hypothesized that Atg7 controls the size while Atg 14 controls the number of autophagosomes. Using western blotting, Pho8D.60 assay and transmission electron microscopy analysis, we found that Atg7 affects both the size and number of autophagosomes. In addition, we have created cells expressing various levels of Atgl4 using non-native promoters. In addition, …

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Polymerization Of Bromoundecylacrylate And Alkylating Methylimidazole, Shuziao Li Jan 2019

Polymerization Of Bromoundecylacrylate And Alkylating Methylimidazole, Shuziao Li

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Polymerized ionic liquids (PIL) generally are solids, but a few examples have been reported that also exhibit liquidity in the neighborhood of room temperature called liquid polymerized ionic liquids (LPIL). The development of a platform suitable for exploring LPIL properties based on the monomer 11-bromoundecylacrylate (AcC11Br) was reported. Poly(AcC11Br) is itself a liquid polymer and can be easily used to alkylate 1-methylimidazole to produce poly(AcC11C1ImBr-co- AcC11Br). Various reaction conditions were explored to examine how extensively 1- methylimidazole can be attached to this polymer, and the extent of alkylation is determined quantitatively by silver ion potentiometry. These polymers retain liquidity at …

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The Effect Of Neonicotinoids On Apis Mellifera: A Revisit, Qingchen Liang Jan 2019

The Effect Of Neonicotinoids On Apis Mellifera: A Revisit, Qingchen Liang

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Colony collapse disorder (CCD), which has caused high colony mortality rates in the European honeybee (Apis mellifera), is a pressing economical and ecological problem. I revisited Woodcock et al.'s (2017a) paper, "Country-specic Effects of Neonicotinoid Pesticides on Honey Bees and Wild Bees", in light of unsound statistical methods used in the original study. In the first part of this paper, I attempted to replicate the analysis underlying key findings in the original paper. In the second part, I reanalyzed the data using mostly non-parametric methods in order to obtain robust results. I did not find any evidence for a harmful …

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Writing And Evaluating The Effectiveness Of A Modern Physics Laboratory Manual, Brendan Jacob Pickard Jan 2019

Writing And Evaluating The Effectiveness Of A Modern Physics Laboratory Manual, Brendan Jacob Pickard

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Undergraduate physics laboratory activities are the main way that students get to apply physics concepts and develop experimental skills. Consequently, the presentation of experimental techniques is exceedingly important, and a poorly constructed guide could hinder student success. I have created a lab manual for use in PHY 372 Modern Physics Laboratory at Eastern Michigan University (EMU). This lab manual helps students develop experimental skills valuable in their future careers in a variety of fields. I evaluated the teaching effectiveness of the lab manual using a survey at the end of the Fall 2017 semester, revised the lab manual, and evaluated …

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Synthesis And Study Of The Micellization Behavior Of A Dual Temperature- And Ph-Responsive Paa-B-Pnipam Block Copolymer, Ehsan Zarshenas Moghadam Jan 2019

Synthesis And Study Of The Micellization Behavior Of A Dual Temperature- And Ph-Responsive Paa-B-Pnipam Block Copolymer, Ehsan Zarshenas Moghadam

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Amphiphilic diblock copolymers are composed of hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions. When they are exposed to water, the hydrophobic blocks aggregate to form a hydrophobic core surrounded by hydrophilic regions outside to give a core-shell micelle. These micelles have many potential applications, such as a drug delivery system, surfactants, or nanoreactor. Many studies have been done to optimize the performance of these copolymers. In this thesis work, nine dual temperature- and pH-responsive poly(acrylic acid-block-N-isopropylacrylamide) (PAA-b-PNIPAM) diblock copolymers with different relative chain lengths of the hydrophobic and hydrophilic blocks were synthesized by reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer polymerization. The preliminary results showed …

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Polymerized Ionic Liquids By Condensation Polymerization: Stimuli Responsive Polyurethane Gels And Dispersions, Harshit Gupta Jan 2019

Polymerized Ionic Liquids By Condensation Polymerization: Stimuli Responsive Polyurethane Gels And Dispersions, Harshit Gupta

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Ionic liquids have been used in free radical polymerizations to make polymerized ionic liquid (PIL) materials of various types. PIL gels based on imidazolium cations have been found to exhibit an anion-exchange induced stimuli responsiveness. This thesis explores incorporation of ionic liquids in polyurethane (PU) polymers to make PIL PU gels and dispersions through condensation polymerization. PIL gels are synthesized through a single-pot approach that show stimuli response to solvents. This approach allows one to make these gels rapidly and cheaply on-site. These gels can reversibly porate in different solvents and are found to be porous when analyzed by scanning …

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Design,Formulation And Synthesis Of Uv/Thermal Dual Cure, Bio-Based Polyurethane Coatings, Ozlem Kubra Akdogan Jan 2019

Design,Formulation And Synthesis Of Uv/Thermal Dual Cure, Bio-Based Polyurethane Coatings, Ozlem Kubra Akdogan

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

In the present work, polyurethane resins have been synthesized using soybean oil based polyols (> 80% bio-renewable content) as a primary component. To overcome some of the limitations associated with soft and flexible structure of soy-based polyols, the resin has been designed with two unique set of functional groups –OH and acrylate, as a means of crosslinking sites. Such resin system can be cured by two independent cure mechanisms – (a) thermal (or ambient) curing of –OH groups by use of isocyanate cross-linkers, and (b) by UV-curing of acrylate functional groups using appropriate photoinitiators. Thus, this dual-curable system can provide …

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Characterization Of The Histone Binding Properties Of The Epigenetic Reader Protein Uhrf2 To H3 In Phd Domain, Marisa Gilliam Jan 2019

Characterization Of The Histone Binding Properties Of The Epigenetic Reader Protein Uhrf2 To H3 In Phd Domain, Marisa Gilliam

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

Every cell contains the same genetic code, to have cell differentiation this genetic code needs to be regulated on what is expressed. The regulation of gene expression without altering the genetic code itself is known as epigenetics. An example of epigenetic regulation can be seen between the binding of UHRF2 and H3 histones. The purpose of this project is to determine ifD363 in UHRF2 is important for histone H3 binding. To do so, D363 was mutated to alanine, lysine or asparagine. The mutant protein was expressed, purified, and its ability to binding to H3 was tested by fluorescence polarization. Compared …

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Pre-Service Teachers’ Emerging Views On Educational Equity, Melody Wilson Jan 2019

Pre-Service Teachers’ Emerging Views On Educational Equity, Melody Wilson

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

An equity-based Statistics course for pre-service mathematics teachers could play a role in the development of pre-service teachers’ equity literacy, encouraging conversations about equity in education and illuminating structural factors that contribute to the educational opportunity gap in the U.S. In the Winter 2019 semester, a faculty team at the author’s university piloted such a course. The course included data explorations dealing with structural inequities by race – one of the most difficult topics to address productively in a teacher preparation course. For the present study, a survey of pre-service teachers’ views on educational equity was administered in a required …

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Designing A Modified Zeeman Slower For The Paschen-Back Magnetic Regime, Leo Michael Nofs Jan 2019

Designing A Modified Zeeman Slower For The Paschen-Back Magnetic Regime, Leo Michael Nofs

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Controlled study of high-density plasmas, such as those found in fusion reactions and stars, is difficult due to their highly-magnetized environments. A specialized high magnetic field (High-B) trap was developed at the University of Michigan in Georg Raithel's research group to study such highly magnetized, high density plasmas using rubidium atoms. By replacing the atom source with a Zeeman slower, a well-studied device to slow and cool atoms, the atom flux could be increased by a factor more than 1000, leading to higher High-B plasma densities. The goal of this project is to design a Zeeman slower that differs from …

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